Freedom
by Leremia C. Awan
Summary: The last to stay is the one to keep. Ibiki and Sakura's closed hearts behind the gate of scars and tears.


**_I do not own Naruto, but the poem is mine._**

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**Freedom**

Sakura was pacing in Tsunade-sama's old office before Shizune walked in and handing her the folder she left the pastel haired woman alone to her grief. Her lover, her Team, her Mother, her Father, her Teacher, and now her Child. They were all gone. All of them.

"I really am alone now.." She trailed off into a shuddering sob as the salty warm tears streaked down her tanned skin. She let her eyes fall into the streets of her beloved village. She closed her eyes as she let the flashes of her loved ones dying in front of her eyes. The first to fall, Sasuke. Naruto killed him and walked down the streets of Konoha with him bruised and bloody, taking him to her. Naruto had looked into her face and said the one thing that made her hate him for the rest of his life. "I brought him back to you, just like I said I would."

The next was her team, They had just formed when the enemy ambushed them and made her watch them die before the reinforcements got there. One year in the hospital and therapy later she finally goes to see her mother and father, only to find them gone. They hadn't given her any warning, left anything for her to find. A month later they're found buried in the forest near Rain.

Next was Tsunade's death. She oddly enough died of alcohol poisoning and an extreme lack of substantial food.

Then things seemed to get better. She was on a mission with ANBU and got captured. They hadn't found her for a week, but when they did, she was bolted down to a table nearly drowning in her own blood. Later it was discovered that while she was a captive she had also been sexually abused to a painful extent, and that she now carried the child of a psycho-rapist who had given her physical and mental scarring that ran too deep to heal. They had strapped her to the hospital bed and restricted her chakra so she couldn't harm herself or the child. The child was a beautiful baby boy with black hair and blue eyes. Sakura had nearly killed it when it was first brought to her. Then later on she opened her heart to the demons child. It was three months old when Sakura went to get him from the crib when she found it still. It was SIDS, or at least that's what Shizune told her.

Sakura opened her eyes and turned towards the sound of the door opening. Ibiki Morino, Head of Interrogation and Torture and ANBU Captain. Also the only one who stayed beside her through it all. He understood, he knew how it felt. Stepping closer to her he let himself relax and removed his heavy jacket and bandanna. Sitting down in a chair he sighed and opened his arms.

"Come here." She inched closer to him as she tried to see through her tears. "Come on."

Sitting on his lap she curled herself in a ball and let herself cry against him. The feeling of his warm arms encircled her and she be began to quiet.

He looked down at the folder that she was crushing in her hands before gently taking it.

"What is this?"

Sakura sniffled and whispered though chapped lips. "My letter."

Opening it Ibiki pulled out a laminated sheet of parchment. "What kind of letter?" he asked gently.

She buried her face in his chest before answering. "The Last kind."

_All I want is just to be free._

_I have tried to find the logic within your reasoning only to get lost in the maze that is your mind,_

_I have looked for the exit out of these dark woods of misery that I concocted from my fears,_

_I see no light but the moonshine off of my glistening blood that is leaking from my eyes for the lack of tears._

_I just want to be free._

_I scream from the loneliness of having no one but the demons that are waiting for my will to crumble and let them have my body to feast on,_

_I try to run from the nightmares but they follow me past the consciousness of my last breath in this life, _

_I just want to be free._

_I feel that tip of the knife held close almost as if it seeks warmth, as if it lives, breaths, feels, as if it knows._

_I taste the metallic taste that is like gripping a heated ruby in the hands of the devil herself,_

_Letting myself fall deeper into the hell I have created around myself,_

_I give it all up now._

_All I ever wanted was to be free._

He released his breath and nuzzled her hair before letting a tear trek down his face.

"Would you really leave me? Like everyone else?"

Sakura shook her head and strained to smile.

"That's why I got it laminated, You'd have to leave first."

Ibiki held her tighter and breathed in her scent. "Never, never."

All I want is to be free.

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What did you think?


End file.
